Thoughts on Ascension
by Lily Fairy
Summary: After dying again, Daniel reflects on his life in the resturaunt he travelled to upon his last death. A oneshot.


Author's Note: This is my first foray into SG-1 fanfic. I also haven't seen all of the episodes related to Daniel and ascension, so if I messed something up, my bad. This is just me exploring the tortured man I've always thought must be inside Daniel somewhere. Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate, nor have I seen all the episodes.

Please review, I love feedback of all kinds. The more you review the more I write! puppy dog eyes

Thoughts on Ascension

He really hated the Ancients. He hated them with all his heart, even as he was drawn to the beauty of their lives.

Ascension.

He couldn't remember what it was to exist as pure light, to be wise beyond the boundaries of men, but he knew enough to guess that it had been wonderful. He guessed that he had felt no true sorrow. He guessed that he had been happy. He knew that he had not been himself.

Standing there, in the center of the vast ship that held the system lords council, he had not hesitated, he had not feared. To destroy the ship, to vastly weaken the Goa'uld stronghold in the universe, was worth giving his life for. And he gave it.

To return again to the small restaurant, mangled body repaired, allergies gone, mortality irrelevant, disappointed him.

He had truly thought that he might find death this time.

To return again to the small restaurant, empty, this time, of Oma and Jim, but filled, always filled, with immeasurably powerful, immeasurably old beings, angered him.

He had truly hoped that he did not need to fight on.

Before, they sat and ignored him, discourteous. Now, they stood in a circle. Stared.

His resignation interested them, he knew. His refusal to accept that noninterference was the proper path was a quality that they regarded as merely childish, merely common, _mortal_. But his willingness to die, mixed with his furious passion for life, annoyed them. He was so _alive_. Not wise, not intelligent, by their standards at least, not great, not exceptional, but merely, vibrantly alive, swayed by anger, sorrow, feeling everything more than he should, caring more than was in his own best interests. So, when he died, they pulled him back, to watch, to see what he would choose. To see what path he would take when there was no Oma to offer a third way out. Death. Life without interference. That was all there was.

He knew that he had loved to be among them. He knew that to fall from their grace was soul-shattering, even though he could not recall it. He knew that he had shone with a radiance beyond the reach of mankind.

But among the things he could not recall, lay one memory, finding its way somehow down through his mind in the peace of meditation.

Baal's dungeon. Jack, begging for help, for death, for anything.

It had felt so right to proclaim noninterference, to announce their was nothing he could do. It had felt so pure, to stay above mankind's petty struggle. He had felt belonging, honor, justice.

And he had snuck off, like a child disobeying a bedtime, and sent into Teal'c's meditation a solution.

The ascended Daniel hated himself for doing it. The human Daniel hated himself for doing no more.

Daniel did not betray his friends. Sitting on the bed, in the dingiest apartment in town, to be kicked out the next day, to live on the streets, a genius abandoned by his kin, a visionary too advanced for his time, doubting the veracity of his theory, yet somehow unable to believe it was wrong, with a gun down his throat, he had embraced his death, accepted that he had nothing more to lose. Sitting on his bed, the stubborn part of Daniel, the part that was scared to death of death, made him put down the gun, answer the phone when it rang. The fear in Daniel made him accept the invitation to speak at the convention, made him meet Catherine, made him accept her offer, let him see the Stargate.

Since he had first stepped in front of Jack, only half intentionally, he had shown an irrational willingness to die for his friends, for innocent strangers, and for his refusal to abandon his beliefs. Since Sha're had died, he had become increasingly less concerned that he might not be revived.

Asked what he fought for, and his answer was clear; to overthrow the race that enslaved his wife, to protect earth, to help his friends.

Jack put up with him. Jack mourned him when he died. Jack backed up more than his share of his stupid plans. Jack was abandoned to die by his best friend, who should have torn every brick in that fortress to the ground to help him.

Daniel would never forgive himself for failing to get Sha're back, and for that single memory, brief though it was.

He didn't fear death, really. He feared that he would have failed, that he would have given up too soon, that he would have left some vital thing undone. He feared that his legacy would have been failure, the fool who believed in things beyond the reach of men, and the idealist who saw the battle with the Goa'uld as a struggle for mankind instead of merely a war.

He left by the door.

He embraced his death.

Somewhere across the line between believing in what is right, and dying for what is right, Daniel Jackson found peace, and Sha're.


End file.
